When you were at school, were you encouraged to be a doctor, lawyer, a teacher - or were you supported to study agriculture and become an agronomist?

Shane Oster, an agronomist based in Keith, says that there just aren't enough young people encouraged to consider careers in agriculture, and that graduate numbers are dropping.

He says it's difficult to staff his business and that other agribusinesses have found it hard to find new graduates.

But as to whether industry needs to market itself better, Shane believes that the marketing is non-existent.

"I think you could probably just sum it up by saying agriculture needs to be marketed - not necessarily better, it's not marketed at all.

"People have the perception that if you are going to be into agriculture you are going to be a farmer - and the reality is, there's a lot of excellent jobs in agriculture that aren't just reliant on being a farmer - but that's certainly not sold within our school system and probably is not sold well enough through the agricultural system as well.

"We all know the hardships that are associated with agriculture and probably people have a lot more negative connotations about agriculture than they do positive ones, and I think that probably reflects on the amount of people that choose to come in to the industry."